Special Deliveries: Her Gift, His Baby. Carol Marinelli

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СКАЧАТЬ smartly at all times and gloved and gowned up for everything.

      ‘Mrs Adams, how lovely to see you looking so well.’ Ethan watched as she approached her ex-patient. Without being told, Penny knew her name. Though the greeting was friendly, it was a very professional smile that Penny gave and there was no tactile embrace. Penny stood there and enquired how Mrs Adams was doing with more than mere polite interest, because even though they had clearly just left the ward, the daughter had a few questions about her mother’s medication and Penny went through the medication bag and easily answered all of them.

      ‘Thank you so much for explaining,’ Mrs Adams’s daughter said. ‘I didn’t like to keep asking the nurse when I didn’t understand.’

      ‘You must keep asking.’

      Yes, the patients loved Penny.

      They didn’t mind in the least that she was meticulous, thorough and incredibly inflexible in her treatment plans.

      It was the staff that struggled—if Penny wanted observations every fifteen minutes, she accepted no excuses if they weren’t done. If Penny ordered analgesia, it didn’t matter to her that there might be a line-up at the drug trolley, or that there was no one available to check the dose, because her patient needed it now.

      Penny walked Mrs Adams and her daughter to the exit, and stood talking for another couple of moments there. As she walked back through the department, Jasmine, a nurse who also happened to be Penny’s sister, called her over to the nurses’ station.

      ‘What did you get?’ Jasmine asked.

      Penny glanced down at the tin she was holding. ‘Chocolate macadamias,’ she said, peeling off the Cellophane. ‘I’ll leave them here for everyone to help themselves.’

      She wasn’t even that friendly towards her sister, Ethan thought as Penny put down the chocolates on the bench and went to go. He would never have picked Penny and Jasmine as sisters—it had had to be pointed out to him.

      Jasmine was dark and curvy, Penny blonde and very slim.

      Jasmine smiled and was friendly, whereas Penny was much more guarded and standoffish. Ethan refused to play by her silent, stay-back rules and he called her as she went to head off. ‘Can I have a quick word, Penny?’

      ‘I’m actually at lunch,’ Penny said.

      The very slow burning Taurus within Ethan stirred a little then—his hazel eyes flashed and, had there been horns hidden under his thick black hair, Penny would now be seeing her first glimpse of them. It took a lot to rile Ethan, but Penny was starting to. Ethan had always known that there might be a problem when he had taken this job—two of the department’s senior registrars had also applied for the consultant position.

      Jasmine’s new husband Jed was one of them.

      Penny the other.

      Knowing the stiff competition, Ethan had been somewhat taken aback when he had been offered the role. He had since learnt that Jed had taken a job in a city hospital, but Penny was still here and, yes, it was awkward. Ethan often reminded himself that her ego might be a touch fragile and that it might take a little while for her to accept him in the role that she had applied for.

      Well, it was time that Penny did accept who was boss and, for the first time, Ethan pulled rank as she went to head back to her lunch.

      ‘That’s fine.’ He looked into her cool blue eyes. ‘But when you’re finished, can you make sure that you come and find me? I need to speak with you.’

      She hesitated for just a second before answering. ‘Regarding what?’

      No, there was no such thing as a casual word with Penny. ‘I’m on call next weekend,’ Ethan said. ‘Is there any chance that you could cover me for a few hours on Sunday afternoon? I’m hoping to go to a football match with my cousin—’ He was about to explain further, but before he could, Penny interrupted him.

      ‘I’ve already got plans.’

      She didn’t add ‘sorry’.

      Penny never did.

      As she turned to go Ethan’s jaw clamped down and, rarely for him, his temper was rising. He was tempted to tap her on the shoulder and tell her that this was more than some idle request because his team was playing that weekend. His cousin was actually on the waiting list for a heart transplant.

      No, he wouldn’t waste the sympathy card on her and with good reason—Ethan actually smiled a twisted smile as Penny walked off.

      ‘Did you use it?’ Phil would ask when Ethan rang him tonight.

      ‘Nope.’

      ‘Good,’ Phil would say. ‘Save it for women you fancy.’

      Yes, it was a black game, but one that got Phil through and gave them both a few laughs.

      He certainly wouldn’t be using the sympathy card on Penny.

      ‘We’re going to the airport to see Mum off on Sunday.’ Jasmine had jumped down from her stool to help herself to the chocolate nuts and offered an explanation where her sister had offered none. She was trying to smooth things over, Ethan guessed, for her socially awkward sister. Except Penny wasn’t awkward, Ethan decided—she simply wasn’t the least bit sociable. ‘It’s been planned for ages.’

      ‘It’s not a problem.’ Ethan got back to his notes as Jasmine, taking another handful of the chocolate nuts, headed off, but as he reached to take a handful himself Ethan realised that Penny hadn’t even taken one.

      She could use the sugar, Ethan thought darkly.

      ‘You could try asking Gordon,’ Lisa suggested when it was just the two of them, because Ethan had told her while chatting a few days ago about his cousin, and, no, he hadn’t been using the sympathy card with Lisa!

      ‘I’ll see,’ Ethan said. Gordon had three sons and another baby on the way. ‘Though he probably needs his weekend with his family, as does Penny.’ He couldn’t keep the tart edge from his voice as he mentioned her name.

      ‘You don’t know, do you?’ Lisa was trying to sort out the nursing roster but she too had seen the frosty exchange between Penny and Ethan, and though she could see both sides, Lisa understood both sides too. ‘Jasmine and Penny’s mum was brought in a few months ago in full cardiac arrest. They were both on duty at the time.’

      Ethan grimaced. To anyone who worked in Emergency, dealing with someone you knew, especially a family member, was the worst-case scenario. ‘Did you manage to keep it from them?’

      ‘Hardly! Well, we kept it from Jasmine while the resuscitation was happening so at least she found out rather more kindly than Penny did.’ Lisa put down her pen and told Ethan what had happened that day.

      ‘Penny was just pulling on her gown when the paramedics wheeled her mother in,’ Lisa said. ‘You know how she gowns up all the time.’ Lisa rolled her eyes. ‘Penny takes up half of the laundry budget on gowns alone. Anyway, you know how she usually starts snapping out orders and things? Well, I knew that there was something wrong because she just stood there frozen. She asked for Jed—he was the other registrar on СКАЧАТЬ